October - 2003 issue > Business

By V. Anantakrishnan

IN A JANUARY 2003 SURVEY OF ABOUT 500 IT executives polled by the Ziff Davis publications, almost one in two agreed on one thing-that their IT systems architecture is more complex than necessary.

Managing applications at this high level of complexity cost them an average of 29 percent of their IT budgets. Is your enterprise systems architecture too complex? Place the drawing of a Rube Goldberg invention on one side, and your systems architecture diagram next to it. If you notice a striking similarity, be afraid, very afraid!

System complexity has a way of sneaking up into your architecture very innocently, and before you know, you would be lording over islands of automation that have nothing in common with each other.

Defining Complexity
Defining complexity may be harder than it seems, especially given the fact that no one deliberately introduces complexity into a system. Like fat buildup that clogs arteries, system complexity just builds up over time.

Complexity is when your enterprise has sixteen different database management systems serving a dozen-odd application. It is compounded when these applications are accessed via two dozen user-interfaces including four different versions of Windows, Macs, and PDAs. It gets further complicated when these communicate using various protocols. The worst part of it all is that all of these could be serving a single business process.

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